


Peaceful, Easy Feeling

by punkrockgaia



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Implied Smut, M/M, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2013-12-05
Packaged: 2018-01-03 13:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockgaia/pseuds/punkrockgaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I want to sleep with you in the desert tonight...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peaceful, Easy Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> Title is obviously from the Eagles song, and if you know the lyrics, you know how this might end up... 
> 
> Cecil and Earl character design from Nazi-Nurse.tumblr.com. Go there. Follow.
> 
> Basically from the same universe as the Super Secret Squad/Trigger Happy Jack stories.

The mesquite-and-sagebrush campfire snapped and sputtered aromatically as the two young men lounged together on their shared sleeping bag. Earl hitched himself up on one elbow, looking down onto his lover and dearest friend.

Cecil's eyes were luminous behind his thick glasses as he gazed up at the broad vista of the void, spread out above them. Earl stroked his cheek gently and smiled as the twitch of Cecil's eyelids and eyebrows told him that he'd switched his focus to his face. 

"Hey, there, handsome."

"Hey, there, yourself." No matter how suave he felt, Cecil's dark satin voice always made him feel like a mere Webelo in comparison. He didn't mind, though, not so long as that voice was talking to him. 

"Thanks for coming out camping with me. I know it's not exactly your thing." 

****

That was a bit of an understatement. Cecil had been okay in Boy Scouts as long as the badges didn't take him too far outside the pavement of the city limits; Urban Guerrilla Warfare, Dumpster Foraging, Alienation, Subversive Radio Host, all that baby stuff, those had come easily, almost naturally to him. But when the focus of Scouting turned to outdoors skills, well, it hadn't gone well. Earl had discovered that Cecil had an absolute _phobia_ of all but the friendliest scorpions, and his fascination with the moon had been a nearly-deadly distraction when the dunes began to moan and writhe and threaten to swallow them whole. (Honestly, who cared what that thing was, anyway? If it were important, someone would have studied it.) It wasn't long after their third disastrous outing that Scoutmaster Hawkins had suggested that he try something a little less strenuous, like becoming an NVCR intern.

It was then, too, that Earl had realized that his feelings for his best friend had... changed. He'd laid there in his tent at night, listening to the sounds of Alphonse and Jerry getting it on in the next tent, and realized that he wanted nothing more than to have Cecil there with him, doing the same thing. That their earlier fumblings had been more than "what does this do?" and "that felt nice; do that again." 

The next morning, he'd ridden his bike to Cecil's house as quickly as his legs would allow. He'd marshaled every ounce of courage he'd had to go up to the front door of the house and knock. He didn't know how Cecil could be afraid of scorpions -- his house was enough to make Earl's bowels feel quaky.

He'd breathed a sigh of relief when Cecil himself opened the door, sleepy-eyed and in his pajamas. Before he could chicken out, he grabbed Cecil's hand and led him barefoot down the thorn bush strewn driveway, past the mailbox where someone had spray-painted the word "witch" in dripping orange letters, to a sweet-smelling patch of wildflowers next to the dry drainage culvert. 

They sat down on the crumbling, already-warm concrete, legs dangling. Earl looked into Cecil's eyes, and his voice faltered. He felt his mouth open and close soundlessly. Cecil quirked his quirk of a smile, leaned in, and planted a small, soft kiss on Earl's lips.

"It's okay, Earl, I missed you too."

That was all it had taken. And that had been years ago. They'd been together through that whole summer, and when blank+blankblankblank blankblank bla-nk bla^nnk had happened, Earl had been one of the first visitors Cecil had asked for in the hospital. He'd sat there with him, putting together jigsaw puzzles and kissing when the nurses weren't looking. Eventually, they figured out that the nurses didn't care if they were kissing or not, so they kissed openly. Sometimes Earl spent the night with him in the hospital, spooning in the tight confines of the bed, always telling his parents that he'd slept on the chair, of course.

After Cecil had gotten out, he'd moved in with Middle-Aged Woman Josie. She'd been stricter than the nurses and hadn't allowed Earl to spend the night, but that was okay. That was what car backseats and backyard hammocks and Earl's parents' swimming pool after they'd gone to bed was for. That was what every stolen moment and flat surface was for.

And then they'd gone to college. And things had changed, but not for the worse. Suddenly, there was no reason to sneak, to find a dark corner for passion. Cecil still lived with Josie, but Earl had a dorm room and a roommate who was more interested in spending the night with his girl of the moment than spending it in his room. Sure, Josie clucked her tongue at Cecil when he'd show up once every few days to get some clean clothes, but what could she really do? She was just the landlady.

Everything was perfect. Everything was perfect, but.

But Cecil was restless, which Earl really didn't get. The tension between them, never critical but always present, wore at Earl. All he wanted was what his parents had -- a little ranch house, matching Barcaloungers, getting fat together and watching the news, the typical 2.5 kids. (His 0.5 sibling was his favorite, actually, much better than his stinky _sister_.) So he didn't get it when Cecil would look through travel magazines and sigh longingly. Night Vale had everything; why travel?

He hadn't realized that the strain was so evident until one rare Cecil-free day at his parents' house, his mother, comforting and sofa-like in her floral print, pulled him aside.

"Earl, honey, what's going on?"

He sighed. His family were his best friends -- well, other than Cecil, that was. "Ugh, Mom, I don't know..."

"Cecil?" she asked, patting his arm.

"Yeah." He couldn't lie to her. "He wants to travel. To Europe, of all places. Can you believe it?"

"Well, Earl, remember, he's been through -- some things --" Her eyes glazed over momentarily, then she shook her head. "And maybe he's not as settled as you are. And maybe you have to let him go. Let him go, and trust that he'll come back, you know?"

"You really think so?"

"I know so."

****

And so it had come to this. The two of them, outside, in the beautiful calm of the desert, the sky big and infinite above them, sharing two sleeping bags made one through the cunning use of zippers. And knowing that in the morning, he'd be letting him go.

He watched him in the firelight for a moment. It was weird, and he'd certainly never tell him, but Cecil reminded him of a Fluffernutter sandwich. It was his marshmallow hair and eyes, and his peanut-butter brown skin. That and he was so very, very sweet he made Earl's fillings ache. He pressed his nose to the side of Cecil's neck and inhaled the burnt-sugar and gunpowder scent of his flesh. Delicious. 

Cecil bit his lip. Cecil was quiet around him. Cecil wasn't quiet around **anyone** but him. He appreciated what that meant, even if he could never have explained it given eternity and an unabridged dictionary. Instead, he leaned over and crushed his mouth to Cecil's.

Cecil groaned and arched up into Earl's arms. They'd been... odd around each other all evening, unsure how to navigate the "goodbye for now" map, but this seemed a way in. Earl slid his hand down the familiar topography of Cecil's ribcage, down to the promontory of his hipbone. Cecil exhaled vapors of cotton candy and ozone into his face, driving him onward.

He rolled down onto the comfortably uncomfortable mattress of his lover's bony form, feeling long lovely taffy arms and legs melt and conform to his own body, leaving sticky streaks where they touched. The void pulsed and throbbed along with them as they joined. 

"Ahhh! Cecil!"

"Earl Earl Earl," a golden-syrup voice flowed and gurgled around his spine. 

They parted, gooey, bantam-tough ribcages pressing desperately together. The void menaced comfortingly above them, like the plush velvet lining inside a coffin.

Earl pressed soft, vehement kisses to Cecil's temple until the other man stopped trembling. "I can't believe you're leaving tomorrow."

Cecil turned to him, eyes wide. "Come with me, Earl." He clutched his biceps with cold, stern fingertips.

Earl chuckled. "With what money, Cecil?"

"I still have some left from, uh..." He trailed off, and his body grew rigid, then relaxed.

Earl knew what he meant. Ever since blankblank, blank-blank; blank%blank*& had happened to the Palmer house and Cecil's mother and someonesomeonesomeonebrothSim----no one no one no one had disappeared, Cecil had a little money. Not a lot, but enough to pay his tuition at NVCC and his rent at Josie's and for his trip. But that was it.

"No, Cee, you need that. You need it for your senior year."

"I don't care. Come with me." He grasped Earl's hand, tight. 

Earl paused. He could leave, couldn't he? He could go and tromp around Europe with Cecil. Yes! Yes, he would.

But.

But his family. 

But Night Vale.

But the Scouts.

But everything.

He brought Cecil's hand to his mouth and kissed it tenderly. "I have to do Scout stuff this summer, Cee. But you'll be back, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good." Earl kissed him again, on the lips. "Because when you get back, I have something important to ask you."

"Ask me now," Cecil pleaded, face wide-open and love-needy in the firelight.

"It can wait," said Earl, thinking of the matching rings on layaway at the Target. "You're not going to forget me, are you?"

"Never, my Brave Earl, never." Cecil buried his face in Earl's shoulder, and Earl held him tight. 

Watching the void, they soon fell asleep.


End file.
